I respectfully disagree.. They are both important. A kid with pinpoint accuracy throwing 55 at the 14U A level against top level competition will get slaughtered.
12U Pitching
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I respectfully disagree.. They are both important. A kid with pinpoint accuracy throwing 55 at the 14U A level against top level competition will get slaughtered.
If I may add to the thoughts on this one. I agree with BT on this to a point. I agree a kid with poinpoint accuracy throwing 55 at 14U A level, 16U A level, and 18U A level with get slaughtered......IF.......that is the only speed she throws. I will take a 55 mph pitcher in 18U all day long if she can also throw a 50 mph for an offspeed and 40 to 45 for a change up consistently. The key IMO is to keep the batters guessing. You want a batter getting in the box saying to themselves I have no idea what she is going to throw. That is half the battle IMO. If a batter sees nothing but one speed all day long they the pitcher will lose. You have to change the batters eyes, set up the next pitch. Nothing is better than an off speed followed by a change up ...2 pitches that the batter has seen at a low speed followed by a fastball, drop, rise, whatever at 10 to 15 to 20 mph faster. IT IS HARD FOR A BATTER TO ADJUST TO SPEED CHANGES. Get in the batters head and keep them guessing!
With that said, what you throw (not how fast you throw it) is incredibly important. A drop leads to ground balls and a rise ball will more often than not lead to pop-ups regardless of how fast they are coming in.
Speed is good for knowing where your DD sits compared to others for about a second. The place to stand out and move ahead is change of speed and getting batters to hit the ball in the ground and high in the air. Everyone wants to be the fastest. It is in our blood, coaches look at it (at least the ones who don't necessarily know what truly wins games) etc. etc. but you don't have to be the fastest to be the most effective. And being the most effective is all that matters at the end of the game.
Lastly, take some time and study Greg Maddux. Yes, different sport but he was far from a flame thrower that everyone wants to be. He was a surgeon with his pitches, accurate as hell, and made hitters hit into outs. Think about how you can help your DD along becoming a more effective pitcher as speed tends to increase over time on its own.
Just my 2 cents!
S3
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- Jun 12, 2015
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You'll see high 40s and low 50s mostly with some of the pitchers having some pretty darn good movement. I'm in the Atlanta area - what team, if you don't mind saying? Mine plays for GA Fire and she pitches so you may see her this year.
If you have a kid that throws a legit 55 with pinpoint accuracy and she's getting slaughtered Taco Joe needs to get his fat butt off of the bucket and quit calling pitches. That's the number one problem in Fastpitch. Moms and dads who know zero about calling pitches never caught a game in their lives past U8 trying to work with their high performance athlete of a daughter.
Pitch calling is very important but a kid throwing 55 with laser accuracy will get barrled up against Mercados A's, the OC batbusters, EC bullets high level teams, Georgia Impact.
I'm not saying a kid can't have a good run Pitching at 55 in local stuff.. but get to the high level competition and that becomes batting practice. I've seen it first hand.
- Jun 12, 2015
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My DD's stats are totally different when DH is calling pitches versus pretty much anybody else. He just gets it, plus he knows her strengths and weaknesses and he studies batters. When another coach calls pitches the outcome is never as good as when he does it. Her pitching is the same, it's the pitch calling that's different.
- Jun 8, 2016
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Kids get better by being challenged. I know this doesn't exactly answer the question but perhaps the underlying reason for the question. As long
as she still gets circle time at a level that perhaps is a bit higher than she is at she will benefit imo.
^^^^^This is right^^^^^ I went to a few 12u pgf games last week and was blown away by the lack of speed. Fastballs mid forties to low fifties. First game I saw (FC vs SCA), not one walk was thrown and very few Ks (3 or 4). Pitchers almost never threw the same pitch twice in row and kept batters off balance for the most part. Final score 4 to 2. I was also blown away by the truly outstanding defense exhibited by both teams, both IN and OF. These young ladies were not just good, they were great.
- Nov 18, 2013
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55 is still above average at 14U. The girls that get pounded at that speed are getting too much of the plate. 60+ isn't that big of deal against those teams because they see it all the time. What they don't see are pitchers with pinpoint accuracy. Moving the ball up and down just outside the corners would baffle even the programs you mentioned. Add a little movement and change of speeds and she'd do just fine against their 18U teams.
